Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?

Mike sent me this article today about how the National Popular Vote legislation is working its way through the Iowa Legislature. The National Popular Vote compact has been enacted in Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey (50 electoral votes). Bills to join the compact are currently pending in ten additional states. If the Act passes in states that have 270 Electoral Votes, it would effectively abolish the Electoral College without the use of a constitutional amendment.

Article Two, Section One

The Electoral College is established by Article Two, Section One, of the United States Constitution, which provides: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.”

The Presidential Electors are selected by the popular vote. The number of electoral votes each state is entitled to calculated by adding is the sum of its number of U.S. Senators and its U.S. Representatives. At present, the Electoral College consists of 538 Presidential Electors.

Sidebar: The Constitution was amended in 1803 by the 12th Amendment, which provides that each Elector vote separately for president and vice president.

The efficacy of the presidential electoral process has been continually debated throughout its existence. The most recent cause for re-examination of this issue was the presidential election of 2000 when Democratic candidate Al Gore won a plurality of the national popular vote, but failed to win the majority of the Electoral College.

Maine and Nebraska choose Presidential Electors using what is termed the Maine Method, which makes it possible for the voters to choose Electors of different political parties and split the electoral vote of these two states.

Criticisms of the Current System

There are three main criticisms of the electoral college system:

First, the winner of the electoral college vote may be different than the winner of the popular vote. This has happened four times in the United States short history: 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000.

Second, the electoral college system gives more voting power to citizens of less populated states, resulting in disproportionate power to those state interests.

Third, under the electoral college system, the popular vote does not reflect popular will because people in “uncontested” states have no incentive to vote. Abolishing the Electoral College may entice the participation of voters in those states where their views are in the minority and their preferred candidate is extremely unlikely to win that state: (I.e. Voting Democrat in Alabama; Republican in Illinois).

Arguments For the Current System

The United States is a federal coalition of component states. The Electoral College preserves this system.

The Electoral College, which organizes votes by region, forces presidential candidates to garner widespread support throughout the Union. The National Popular Vote could elect a person who wins by a large margin in a few states even though another candidate prevailed by small margins in most states.

The Electoral College favors minority groups in particular states.

Potential consequences of National Popular Vote:

Would adoption of the popular vote would simply shift the disproportionate focus to large cities at the expense of rural areas?

Would candidates be inclined to campaign hardest in their base areas to maximize turnout among core supporters, and ignore more closely divided parts of the country?

What would the consequences be for third party candidates? Currently, you must win state to receive any electoral votes. This is a major impediment to a national third-party candidate.

If you are in favor of abolishing electoral college then don’t you have to be in favor of abolishing Senate? Must we then go to direct proportional representation on all matters?

What Do You Think?

20 Comments

Great writeup Brian. The comment about abolishing the senate is an interesting one that hadn’t occurred to me.

You made a statement, “the electoral college system gives more voting power to citizens of less populated states”

I’m assuming you mean because each state has 2 senators, regardless of population so the “weight” of each elector is greater in smaller states, meaning each elector in low-popolulation states represents a smaller number of voters.

Anyway, I would be curious to see the resultant math, as far as HOW imbalanced this is, say, between the most and least populous states in the Union, or more appropriately to the conversation, between Illinois and Nebraska. Would a simple a/b equation do the trick where “a” is the number of electors and “b” is the voting population of each state?
The answer should tell us just what percentage of a “vote” each citizen of that state actually gets.

Brian Karpuk
on February 13, 2009 at 12:57 am

That’s what I think it means Mike. Here’s the math:

California has 53 House seats and thus 55 electoral votes for 36,756,666 people. Thus, every 668,303 residents of California equates to one electoral vote.

Iowa has 5 House seats and thus 7 electoral votes for 3,002,555 people. Thus, every 428,936 residents in Iowa equates to one electoral vote.

Wyoming has 1 House seat and thus 3 electoral votes for 532,668 people. Thus, every 177,556 residents in Wyoming equates to one electoral vote.

Two Questions

What effect does the possibility that Iowa probably will lose one House seat, and thus one electoral vote, have on the State legislature’s vote? The loss of one House seat would increase the ratio of population-to-electoral votes in Iowa to 500,425.

Why would a swing state like Iowa want to change things. The electorate in Iowa has swung back and forth over the last few years. Why would it want to change the current system, lessening its influence? (Note how hard Iowa fights every four years to remain at the front of the Primary season).

Brian Karpuk
on February 13, 2009 at 2:28 am

The question also arises, why are proponents of the NPV attempting to go this route, as opposed to enacting a constitutional amendment? Simply put, it requires the approval of far fewer states.

The Constitution provides that “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors.” Therefore, the state legislature can provide for the choosing of electors which follow the national popular vote (in the same way that Nebraska and Maine allow their electors to follow the votes of their House districts).

The reason proponents of NPV are going this route is that it is easier than amending the Constitution. The easiest way for the constitution to be amended is for a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress to vote to propose an amendment followed by the amendment being approved by three-fourths of states, either by the state legislatures or special state conventions.

So, rather than two-thirds of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures, the NPV essentially only needs the approval of the legislatures of the 11 largest states.

I wonder what the Supreme Court will say….

Brian Karpuk
on February 13, 2009 at 8:19 pm

Voter turnout by state for 2004. Turnout is definitely higher in competitive states.

Brian Karpuk
on February 13, 2009 at 9:00 pm

Looking at it another way, is it really a closeness of the election thing, or is it a geographical, cultural thing. The states in blue vote at a higher than national average rate. The states in yellow vote at a lower than national average rate.

Mike Beacom
on February 13, 2009 at 10:21 pm

This may be the most thought provoking election turnout map I’ve seen yet. Whats up with LA and FL?

Brian Karpuk
on February 14, 2009 at 1:32 am

I’m thinking Florida was the Bush/Kerry get out the vote…and dead people are voting in Louisiana.

The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided “battleground” states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in these 15 “battleground” states. Similarly, in 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.

Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.

In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.

mvymvy
on February 14, 2009 at 4:49 am

The normal way of changing the method of electing the President is not a federal constitutional amendment, but changes in state law. The U.S. Constitution gives “exclusive” and “plenary” control to the states over the appointment of presidential electors.

Historically, virtually all of the previous major changes in the method of electing the President have come about by state legislative action. For example, the people had no vote for President in most states in the nation’s first election in 1789. However, nowadays, as a result of changes in the state laws governing the appointment of presidential electors, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states.

In 1789, only 3 states used the winner-take-all rule (awarding all of a state’s electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). However, as a result of changes in state laws, the winner-take-all rule is now currently used by 48 of the 50 states.

In other words, neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all rule) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.

In 1789, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote; however, as a result of changes in state laws, there are now no property requirements for voting in any state .

The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes. The abnormal process is to go outside the Constitution, and amend it.

What the current U.S. Constitution says is “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”

mvymvy
on February 14, 2009 at 4:50 am

Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, along district lines (as is currently the case in Maine and Nebraska), or national lines.

mvymvy
on February 14, 2009 at 4:51 am

The small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus.

Small states are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential election. Only 1 of the 13 smallest states are battleground states (and only 5 of the 25 smallest states are battlegrounds).

Of the 13 smallest states, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has “only” 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.

The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York’s use of the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive low-population states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming–both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.

The concept of a national popular vote for President is far from being politically “radioactive” in small states, because the small states recognize they are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current system.

The National Popular Vote bill already has been approved by a total of seven state legislative chambers in small states, including one house in Maine and both houses in Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It has been enacted by Hawaii.

mvymvy
on February 14, 2009 at 4:51 am

The 11 most populous states contain 56% of the population of the United States and that a candidate would win the Presidency if 100% of the voters in these 11 states voted for one candidate. However, if anyone is concerned about the this theoretical possibility, it should be pointed out that, under the current system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the vote in these same 11 states — that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s votes.

Of course, the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely act in concert on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states include five “red” states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six “blue” states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

Moreover, the notion that any candidate could win 100% of the vote in one group of states and 0% in another group of states is far-fetched. Indeed, among the 11 most populous states, the highest levels of popular support were found in the following seven non-battleground states:
? Texas (62% Republican),
? New York (59% Democratic),
? Georgia (58% Republican),
? North Carolina (56% Republican),
? Illinois (55% Democratic),
? California (55% Democratic), and
? New Jersey (53% Democratic).

To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 votes for Bush in 2004 — larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 votes for Bush in 2004.

mvymvy
on February 14, 2009 at 4:52 am

When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.

Under a national popular vote, every vote is equally important politically. There is nothing special about a vote cast in a big city. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties know that they must seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the state in order to win the state. A vote cast in a big city is no more valuable than a vote cast in a small town or rural area.

Another way to look at this is that there are approximately 300 million Americans. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities is only 19% of the population of the United States. Even if one makes the far-fetched assumption that a candidate won 100% of the votes in the nation’s top five cities, he would only have won 6% of the national vote.

Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from the way that national advertisers conduct nationwide sales campaigns. National advertisers seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers do not advertise only in big cities. Instead, they go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located. National advertisers do not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because their competitor has an 8% lead in sales in those states. And, a national advertiser with an 8%-edge over its competitor does not stop trying to make additional sales in Indiana or Illinois merely because they are in the lead.

mvymvy
on February 14, 2009 at 4:55 am

There is no similarity between a state legislature using power that the U.S. Constitution specifically gives it to choose the method of electing the President and the hypothetical issue of changing the representation of the states in the U.S. Senate. Equal representation of the states in the U.S. Senate is explicitly established in the U.S. Constitution. This feature of the U.S. Constitution is simply out of the reach of state law. In fact, this feature of the U.S. Constitution may not even be amended by an ordinary constitutional amendment. Instead, this section of the U.S. Constitution may only be changed by unanimous consent of all 50 states. There is no connection between the National Popular Vote bill and the hypothetical issue of changing the basis for representation in the U.S. Senate.

Mike Beacom
on February 14, 2009 at 10:07 am

mvymvy,

You make some good points and I get the distinct feeling you’ve done this before.

I have a couple of thoughts.

First, I think you’re right, the current system creates a negative by propagating an environment where voters in certain states get little or no attention. But, I’m not sure a NPV would change that. In fact, I can envision scenarios where it might get worse.

You mention advertising as an example but I don’t think it’s a good one. Advertising has an associated cost that is radically different in different markets. This is based on the advertising penetration. If you put up a street sign in LA, maybe 50,000 people will see it. You put up the same sign in Bismark ND and maybe 300 people will see it. Advertising costs tend to reflect this. Not so with a candidates most value asset, his/her time. It costs the candidate just as much time and energy to do a Rally in Boston as it does to do a Rally in Waterloo IA. In fact, due to the urban density in some areas, it actually costs MORE time and energy to visit remote locations because you can’t do as many stops per day. As an “advertiser”, a candidate will get much more bang for their buck in areas of urban sprawl, for example whistlestops up and down the coasts.

Second. You make a statement about the “value” of a vote.

“A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming–both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections. ”

This is fallacious and based on my estimation of your command of this issue, I’ll add to that, dishonest. Simply because a state tends to vote a certain way doesn’t make a vote have less value. If any number of voters on the potentially winning side didn’t vote, the outcome would be different. People MUST vote, in order for the predicted outcome to take place. Thus all the votes have value, because without them, things wouldn’t happen. Basically, whats happening here is, the vote has value…..until it doesn’t. In this type of logic, a single vote never has value, because plus or minus one vote, very few outcomes would change. You could make the same fallacious statement about a NPV. If we had an NPV and Obama won by 50,000 votes, one could say that any of those 50,000 votes (or ANY individual vote) had no value because if that person had not voted, Obama still would have one. Just because something seems like a forgone conclusion, that doesn’t mean it should be disregarded.

As I’ve said before, the electoral college is not perfect. The poster above makes that clear. But what’s not so clear is the unintended consequences of an NPV. I’m not adamant about keeping the electoral college the way it is, in fact, my gut feeling is that we need a change.
I’m just not sure an NPV is the way to go yet. Comments from mvymvy have certainly helped my thinking on it though.

If you’re still around, thanks for the input. I think you’ll find that there are at least a couple of us here that are open to your viewpoint but not yet convinced. A few questions/comments:

The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided “battleground” states.

Part of me isn’t sure that this is a bad thing. If you accept the idea that the people of Iowa or Ohio or Florida are representative of people throughout the rest of the country, then I could make an argument that its better to let the candidates camp in a couple of areas of the country. Let the people of those states get to know them the best they can, rather than flying all over the place making stops here or there.

Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, along district lines (as is currently the case in Maine and Nebraska), or national lines.

Narrowly construed you might be correct. But if you look at it like that you miss the bigger picture. NPV does affect the power of States vis-a-vis the national government because it affects the relationship of the State vis-a-vis other States.

The federal government is a government of specifically granted powers. Those powers are enumerated in the Constitution and as set forth in the Tenth Amendment, “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

For the last 200 years, whether for good or ill, the word “States” has slowly but surely been removed from the title United States of America. The expansion of a Commerce Clause that is now so wide you could drive a dump truck through it. The power of the federal government to control States through the appropriation of funds. I used to say the direct election of Senators, but this whole Blago thing here in Illinois has made me step back on that a little bit.

Elimination of the Electoral College would put one more nail in the States Rights coffin.

I don’t know whether the nationalization of everything is good or bad. Probably a bit of both. But to pretend that the direct election of the President through the NPV is not a federalism concern is simply incorrect.

The small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President.

As Mike said, this statement is so false it is almost dishonest.

Mike Beacom
on February 14, 2009 at 8:09 pm

Brian,

You make a good point. When you consider the constituency coverage of the “15” battleground states, I wonder what subsection of voter is not well represented in those 15 states. Perhaps the retired ethnically polynesian electorate? In all seriousness, the claim of “disenfranchisemed” voters is pretty weak. It begs the question, does a candidate have to shake a hand personally in order to “franchise” a voter? Does a candidate have to speak locally such that you hear their voice personally? I think the obvious answer to both is, ‘no’. The vast majority of voters will go into the voting booth, having never laid eyes on a major candidate for President. That being the case, typical news coverage of a candidates speeches, public comments, party platform and debates should be sufficient. Add to that the fact that there are more and more 24 hour national election coverage outlets and mediums and you will be hard pressed to make an argument that any concerned citizen doesn’t have access to the necessary information to make an informed vote.